Tempting the Wolf
by Solas-Divided
Summary: He didn't know what he had, until he lost her. M for reasons!


Halloween Magic

It was wrong. She knew it was, but the temptation… the temptation was just too… delicious. She couldn't overlook such an opening, not when it was handed to her on such a beautiful, silver platter.

She'd taken great pains to prepare, selecting everything with careful consideration. This was not a night she was willing to waste.

In the corridor just steps away from the row of firmly closed doors, her quarry waited, ignorant of her cunning approach, her devious concocting and she couldn't be giddier by the prospect of catching him off guard, a rare fate. He was not a man easily fooled.

A ripple of excitement passed through her. She could barely suppress the patter of her feet as she padded silently over the floorboards. The whisper of breaths rose from the slumbering occupants on the other side of the doors. No one in number twelve Grimmauld Place would notice her absence. No one would ever know her secret. She knew they would never understand. They couldn't possibly comprehend the temptation, the pull during nights like this. It didn't matter how many rules they broke or how forbidden their time together was she needed him. It was like a drug she couldn't ignore. She couldn't deny it or fight it even if she'd tried.

So, she didn't.

On the last step, down the creaky staircase, she nimbly hoped over the single, loose floorboard and hurried to the door. She paused briefly with her hand on the doorknob and listened carefully to every sigh and groan flittering through the otherwise still air.

Satisfied that she'd make it in and out yet again without being caught, she turned the knob, lowered the wards and slipped out into the frigid night.

All Hallows Eve–the very night seemed to shimmer with magic. The moon glistened fat and round against the inky backdrop. Trees swayed in the nippy breeze, their bare branches creaking.

Hermione shivered, drawing her cloak closer. Her feet made no sound against the pavement as she hurried down the sidewalk towards the thick throng of trees clustered just in the distance.

Already she could sense him, smell him. The very air was ripe with his presence. Her body gave a tingle of anticipation and her steps became more hurried.

The damp, forest grounds gave sank beneath her feet, but she gave no notice. Her gaze honed, searching, scanning the darkness.

He was close… just another step…

"What have I told you about trying to sneak up on me, pet?" a deep, rumbling voice drawled into her ear.

His sudden heat and proximity pressing into her back, sent her body tingling. She couldn't fight the shiver that skating through her. Her breath hitched.

"I _will_ get you off guard," she vowed breathlessly. "One day."

Large, clawed hands rested on her shoulders. His face, scratchy and rough with whiskers, scrapped the side of her face, burning the sensitive skin with his ragged growl.

"Why are you here?"

It was a question he asked each time she sought him out. She knew he knew the answer, but it was a matter of control, of reminding her just what she was risking by venturing out nearly nightly to see him.

"You know why," she answered, wanting to turn, but being held in place by his firm grasp.

"And if you'd been caught?"

Hermione shivered. "I don't care."

The hands tightened nearly painfully. "Liar!" he growled fiercely into her jaw.

"I want to be with you!" she argued.

"You promised!" he snarled, his voice trembling just slightly with the longing she knew he felt.

She turned, breaking away from his nearly unbreakable hold to stare up into his narrowed, yellow eyes glowing bright in the darkness. "So did you!" She pointed out, reaching for him. "You promised to stay away. You promise almost every night, but you still come!" She took a step forward once her fists curled around the front of his shirt. "How can I refuse when I know you're so close?"

His hands returned to her shoulders, squeezing and drawing her closer. "I need to watch over you!"

"Now you are the liar," she said, tilting her head back to glower up into his shadowed face. "You know I have not needed your guidance in many months now. You told me yourself that I was ready."

"I changed my mind."

"Liar."

His lips curled back over his razor sharp teeth. "Don't presume that you understand me, girl! I am still a monster!"

"Yes," she agreed softly, lifting her hand and touching the side of his face. "You are a monster, but I belong to you!" She tore down the collar of her robes to show him the mark still burning bright against the pallor of her skin. "You marked me as yours. You made me like you!"

"It was a mistake!" the sharp retort had only hurt the first time he'd uttered them, but over the months they'd become less convincing, less cruel and with less meaning. Now they sounded more like a plea.

Hermione drew back, small hands unclasping the buttons holding her robes together. She'd taken great care in the outfit underneath. "And the second time? And the third? The fourth perhaps? Maybe even the hundredth, which time exactly, had been a mistake?"

"All of them!" he growled, lust-filled eyes watching every movement of her hands and the stretch of skin quickly becoming visible.

She smirked. "Liar." She peeled apart the fabric completely to reveal the silky, black slip underneath. "Do you remember this?" The robes fluttered to the soggy grounds. "I wore this the first night you claimed me a year ago tonight. It had been a night just like this one. I'd been asleep in my bed when you broke in and… did things to me no one ever had before"

A deep, primal growl rumbled from him, but he didn't speak.

She continued. "You tore it to pieces… I was so scared and aroused. I wanted you and hated you. But you knew that, didn't you? You knew you had me addicted to you even before you fucked me nearly unconscious," she smiled as if recalling a warm, loving memory. "And then you turned me. You made me yours and I let you."

"Enough!" he rasped, turning away. "Get out of here! Return to your bed."

"Not unless you come with me."

"And what would your friends think? What would the Great Harry Potter think if he knew just how much you needed me? If he knew how often, you crept out of your bed and sought me out? He'll turn you away. They all will. You'll be a monster in their eyes, a traitor."

"Then I will finally be free to be with you forever. There will be no more sneaking around, no more long, lonely nights wishing for you, no more pretending I'm something I'm not," she paused to touch the side of his scratchy face. "Nothing would make me happier than that day."

His hand was strong and warm when it closed around the top of hers, keeping her touch against the bristles lining his jaw. "You don't know what you're asking for. I can't be the man you want. You can't tame me!"

She tilted her head to the side and peered into his beautiful, golden eyes. "Why would I want to? I love everything—"

"Don't! Don't say that word! You're too young to feel something like that for a creature like me!"

"It's true," she whispered, moving a step closer until she could lift her lips and touch his. "You know it's true. I do so much, with everything inside me."

"Don't!" he growled his voice filled with pain. "Don't waste something so precious and worthy on me!"

"It is not a waste, and if it were, then it's mine to waste." She smiled sadly. "Do you honestly think I can help it? I would give anything to simply disappear from here with you and leave everything behind," she looked down, slicking her lips. "I'm so scared of the end when we will meet on that battlefield and will be required to kill the other."

His finger hooked under her chin and lifted her face to his. "It won't come to that. I will protect you."

With a soft sniffle, she wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled the curve of his neck like a kitten searching for warmth. "I don't want to lose you."

"You won't get that lucky."

She lifted her face to his, her eyes brimming. "Don't say that. I couldn't stand it…"

"You will find another."

"I don't want another! I only want you!"

"What if I don't want you?"

She didn't miss the husky desire in his voice and she shivered from it. Her thumbs hooked into the straps around her shoulders and she let the flimsy material slither down her body to form a dark pool around her ankles.

Had it been snowing, raining, or icy cold, she would never have noticed. Her body burned with a heat crackling from deep within. She knew he could smell her and feel her heat. His own arousal hung thick in the air.

"Then I will go to someone who will satisfy my body, the body that you made this way. Is that what you want? To have one of those Order members put their hands on me to give me pleasure? Or maybe I should seek out a Death Eater…"

His head snapped up with a force sharp enough to make his neck muscles crack. His eyes burned a bright red and his razor-sharp teeth glistened from between his curled lips.

"I'll kill him and anyone else that touches you!"

The protectiveness in his voice made her shiver. "Why? Why would you care when you don't want me anyway?"

"Don't want you? You stupid girl! Do you honestly believe that?" His hard, rough hands grabbed her and slammed her forcefully into his jagged chest. "Does this feel like a man who doesn't want you?"

He gouged his erection into the soft flesh of her belly.

She moaned under the callus treatment. His brutality was what she loved best. When he took her like an animal, when he lost control, and devoured her with an insatiable hungry was how she wanted him.

"Then make me yours, again."

"Masochistic fool," he growled, shoving her roughly to the ground, on top of her discarded robes. "This is what you want, isn't it?" he panted, tearing away his own clothes until he kneeled bare and beautiful between her sprawled legs. "You want to be my little whore, don't you?"

Cream rushed from her hot core with his vulgar words. The cool, October air whispered against the moisture, making her shiver and pant. Her nipples hardened, straining against her aching mounds.

"Say it!" he snarled, grabbing her thighs roughly and yanking her to him over the bits of twigs and rocks.

"Yes! I want it! I want you!" she sobbed, crying out when his long, sharp fingers dug into her soft, supple flesh.

He growled in satisfaction. "I love it when you sing for me."

No warning, no indication, he twisted her around onto all fours and thrust to the hilt into her hot, willing heat. His snarl of ecstasy laced with her choked gasp. Her nails gouged into the moist soil while she fought to control the chaos of her body. The sweet pain and unbearable pleasure captured the very air from her lungs. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her skull. Her hair was caught in his cruel grasp and yanked, pulling her up onto her knees with her back pressed flush against his chest.

He growled into the side of her face, his hips pounding against her in slow, hard pumps. Hermione groaned under his ministration and snide words. Her arm hooked up and around the back of his neck, keeping him close while he clasped one arm around her middle and kept the other one laced in her curls. His hot breath burned into the side of her face with every wolfish growl that vibrated across his chest, tickling the muscles of her back. The hand in her hair slipped down her shoulder and grasped her breasts. His long, blunt fingers skimmed and plucked at her nipples, making her whimper and wiggle her hips. He pushed inside her deeper, stretching and caressing every inch of her channel. Her hot, sticky cream made soft, squishy sounds with every thrust in and out he made. His chest rubbed hard and firm against her back.

It took no time at all for her to call his name, her nails digging into his scalp as euphoria surged like a blistering blaze inside her. Her scream of rapture circled the clearing and she slumped in his arms as her body shook and convulsed around his.

Behind her, he snarled when she rushed him with her cream and the walls of her vagina milked tight him. His grip on her became almost unbearable as he panted and rutted inside her.

When his canines sunk into the marked column of her neck, Hermione tumbled into a second orgasm that left her weak and dizzy while he finished with a satisfied grunt and collapsed on top of her.

They lay with him on top of her, still embedded inside her trembling heat. His face stayed in her neck where he lazily stroked her wound with his tongue.

"I will never let you go," she whispered, closing her eyes as sleep urged her forward. "I love you."

"When will this stop, Hermione?" he hissed into her ear. "When will you realize that I am no good for you?"

"Never!" she murmured, still groggy. "I belong to you."

His growl was louder against the back of her neck. His arms tightened around her. "Stop saying that! I told you long ago that you were just a toy! A moment of entertainment! You don't mean anything to me!"

"Then you wouldn't keep coming back to me. You wouldn't want me as much as you do. You wouldn't claim me every night."

There was a long stretch of silence where neither of them spoke. Their labored breathing rustled around them with the winds.

It was very slowly and reluctantly that he removed himself from inside her and reached for her slip.

Without a word, he slipped it on over her head and brushed it down her body. He fastened the robe around her next before gathering his own clothes and redressing.

In the darkness, under the pale halo of the full moon, they faced each other, standing three feet apart.

Hermione looked into the face of the man who's every breath coursed through her veins and sighed. "When will you realize that you love me too? I know you do. I can see it in your eyes when you look at me."

He averted his face, the muscle in his jaw twitching. "It's the full moon, Hermione. My eyes are hungry for blood and nothing else."

"Why do you always push me away? Do you want me to find someone else? Is that what you want?"

Clenched any tighter, his jaw would have shattered, and even in the murky night, she could see the veins pulsing across the back of his fists.

"I have no hold over you—"

"Liar!" she screamed, tears burning behind her eyes. "That's all you have over me! Did you know that I feel you inside me even when you're not there? Sometimes, I can even hear you thinking, I can feel your pain and your needs… explain that! Explain why I feel lost and alone without you. Tell me why I feel like I'll never be whole until I see you again, until I'm with you again."

"Infatuation!" he barked back. "I stole something from you the night I attacked you! You were innocent, yes, but I took something even more precious than that. I took your humanity! I made you a monster like me and as your creator we share a connection. But that's all it is!"

"You're wrong! I know how I feel! It's not infatuation; it's not lust or fear. I want you! Why can't you understand that?"

"Because I don't want it!" he growled, turning away from her completely. "Go back to your friends. You don't belong here!"

Hermione trembled with a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather. Her very soul seemed to crackle with iciness. Although they'd had this conversation, more times than not, to hear them every time…

"Fine," she whispered, taking a step back. "I will leave you. This will be the last time you see me."

Then she walked away, keeping her back and shoulders straight, even while tears trickled down her cheeks and her heart shattered into a million pieces

*~*~**~*~*

He didn't return until the next full moon.

She felt him even before she heard his low, tortured howl. The pleading sound tore inside her like hot knives. The wolf inside her shifted and whined for its mate, but she was the one in control.

She wouldn't go running again, no matter how much her body burned for him.

His next howl was filled with pleading desperation, and she still ignored it, climbing into her bed and pulling the covers straight over her head.

The new Ministry Wolfsbane potion prevented her from transforming completely, but her animal instincts were still crisp. She could still sense his presence, his heat, his need, but more than that, she could feel his pain, his desire, and his remorse.

And still she remained huddled in her bed, listening to his whimpering until she thought she'd go mad from it.

*~*~***~*~*

He returned the next night, and the night after that and again after that. Every night for two months and every night, she lay awake in her bed, listening to him beg her to come to him and every night, she refused.

It killed her a little more each time to refuse the call of her mate. She knew she couldn't fight it forever and eventually she would perish and die from the absence, but she preferred death to hearing him deny her again and again. Wolves couldn't live without their mates. Ultimately, the separation would kill them both and it would be his fault.

Her friends were beginning to notice the difference in her. They questioned daily about the pallor of her face, the shadows around her eyes, and the emptiness echoing around her. But what could she tell them that wouldn't make them hate her? She was in love with the enemy and worse than that, she was a part of him willingly.

They would never understand.

*~*~***~*~*

It was on the third month that Hermione finally couldn't stand it any longer. She threw on her robes and bolted from the house barefoot. The wind whipped and whistled through her hair as she ran with the speed of a wolf into the trees. His figure was in her line of sight in minutes, standing hunched and defeated against a tree.

She didn't announce her arrival, nor did he seem to sense her when she tackled him to the ground with all her strength and sat growling on top of his chest.

"Stay away from me!" she snarled, vibrating with anger and pain. "Why won't you stay away? I gave you what you wanted! Why are you torturing me?"

He stared up into her face with so much suffering and guilt that she nearly faltered.

"I can't," he said, his voice much softer than she'd ever heard it. "I tried, but I can't. I feel so… empty, like a part of me is gone forever. I can't eat or sleep… the full moon… I've never felt so much pain. My wolf won't listen to me. He blames me for losing you. I need you back, Hermione."

She shook her head, refusing to let him weasel his way in. "You had your chance. For a year, I chased after you, begging you not to throw what we had away, but you ignored me! You called me foolish and naïve. You told me I didn't know what I was talking about. Well, now you understand and it's too late!"

He grabbed her arms when she made to get up and held her on top of him. "It's not too late! Please…"

She'd never heard him use that word before. It shook with desperation, a trait he didn't possess.

"What about everything you said? About how we were on the wrong sides and how I didn't belong with you?"

"You belong with me," he said with complete certainty. "It took me losing you to realize that, but I know it now."

"For how long?" she asked, refusing to give in so easily. "For how long will you want me? Until you decide that I'm not worth it anymore?"

His hand touched the side of her face, tenderly brushing away a curl from her cheek. "I've always wanted you and you've always been worth it."

"I can't lose you again, Fenrir," she said, swallowing hard. "I can't go through this and then end up with you hurting me. I can't!"

He shook his head. "I'll never hurt you again. I swear it. Just come back, please."

Her response was the drop of her mouth on his. His arms closed around her like steel, crushing her to him as he rolled along the forest floor and pinned her under him.

They kissed until neither could breath and broke apart out of desperation for air. Even then, their lips trailed over the other's face, neck, shoulders, and finally sought the others mouth once more.

Hermione tunneled her fingers through his hair and kept him close while the emptiness inside her shrunk and vanished altogether. The sense of complete fulfillment sang throughout her body like sweet wine. Her wolf was back in her arms and she couldn't think of a better place to be.

*~*~***~*~*

The Wizarding world was in an uproar. The war had begun. Voldemort had found his way into the walls of Hogwarts and only Harry Potter could stop him.

In the midst of all the confusion, the chaos, and rage, no one noticed the two fighting side-by-side, killing both sides to keep the other safe. No one noticed their fingers entwined or the greedy way they kept the other close.

"Whatever happens, I _will_ keep you safe!" Fenrir told the small witch, standing brave and tall, beside him.

She squeezed his fingers and gave him the brightest smile she could muster. "We'll get out of this and we'll finally be together."

He gave her a nod, dropping his head and kissing her deeply. "I love you, mate."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, but she kept her smile fixed. "Tell me when this is over."

It didn't end, not for hours. The madness raged on for what felt like an eternity before the announcement was made that Voldemort had been vanquished by Harry Potter and the Wizarding world was safe once more.

Hermione looked up at her mate, taking in his tattered and bloody appearance with thanks that he was all right otherwise.

"Are you ready, love?" she asked, reaching into the pocket of her robes.

Fenrir nodded, accepting two of the four bottles she produced.

Together they crouched down by a pair of deceased bodies and as quickly as they could, the plucked out a strand of hair from their own heads, and a strand from the two laying cold and unmoving on the floor and placed each strand in a different bottle filled with Polyjuice potion. Then they quickly stripped themselves and the other two of their clothes and switched them.

Once set, Hermione took the bottles with hers and Fenrir's hair and poured it into the mouths of the two Ravenclaws while Fenrir held their jaws open for easy access. One was a girl and other a boy, but she recognized neither, so she felt only slightly guilty as the bodies transformed and morphed into a replica of her and Fenrir.

"There," she murmured, getting to her feet with the second set of bottles in hand.

She gave the bottle containing the boy's hair to Fenrir and downed the other one herself.

The transformation was instant and Hermione turned to the boy next to her.

"Ready?"

He nodded, taking her hand.

No one noticed them slip through the celebration and out the front doors of Hogwarts.

Hermione paused with her foot on the threshold and glanced back once. "Good bye, Harry. Good luck."

With a smile to the group clustered around a flushed and disheveled Harry, Hermione followed her mate out the doors and out of the Wizarding world for good.

*~*~***~*~*

The news was everywhere. Hermione Granger was dead. She died bravely in the midst of battle and her friends would forever miss her.

it was suspected that she'd been fighting Fenrir Grayback and the two killed each other for they were both found mere inches apart. But no wands were in sight.


End file.
